A Gauge-Invariant Color Charge in QCD

Abstract

A gauge-invariant color-charge operator is defined and related to an integral of the gauge-invariant chromoelectric field over a closed surface. We discuss the case of a surface all of whose points are a macroscopic distance from a system of quarks and gluons which it entirely surrounds. When this system of quarks and gluons forms a hadron or an object composed of hadrons, such as a nucleus, it is argued that the gauge-invariant color charge enclosed within this surface must vanish and the system of hadrons in the interior of the surface must be a color singlet.